The Research Triangle has biggest jump in CBRE's annual ranking of tech markets

The Triangle's concentration of tech talent and jobs continues to grow at a fast clip coming out of the pandemic.

Why it matters: The Triangle's attractiveness as a hub for the tech industry increased more than any other market in an influential ranking of metro areas released by the real estate group CBRE, which helps many tech companies find and lease office space.

• The region's wealth of tech talent is why big employers like Wolfspeed , Fujifilm Diosynth and Meta are planting roots in the Triangle or expanding their workforce here.
• Even non-tech companies are moving here to tap into talent for the tech roles they do have.

Driving the news: The Triangle came in at No. 16 among the top metro areas for tech talent, up three spots from the past year, according to CBRE .

• CBRE's annual report scores metro areas on 13 metrics, including the concentration of tech jobs, education attainment, salaries and rents.

State of play: Raleigh is one of several highly educated metro areas in the Sun Belt seeing strong growth in its tech industry and starting to benefit from investments in emerging tech like artificial intelligence .

• "We are starting to see some of those up-and-coming AI markets, like Austin, like Raleigh, like markets across the Sun Belt, come into the conversation as it's becoming harder and harder to compete for talent in the Bay Area," Luke Ogelsby, an executive vice president in CBRE's San Francisco office, said during a presentation.

By the numbers: The report shows that the Triangle stands out in several ways on the national stage.

• The number of tech workers here grew 17.9% to 75,150 between 2018 and 2023. That was one of the highest rates in the country.
• It had the third-highest representation of female tech workers of any market in the study.
• And many businesses are attracted to its lower costs, with the average wage for a tech worker in the Triangle at $106,900, compared to $192,969 in the San Francisco Bay area. Triangle rents, although growing fast, still remain lower than most peer tech hubs as well, per the report.
• Our region also has the third-highest female representation among large tech markets, only trailing Ottowa, Canada, and Washington, D.C.

But it stands out for being a magnet for young workers with college degrees.

• Nearly 50% of Raleigh's population over the age of 25 has a bachelor's degree, a number that only trails six other metro areas in the study.
• And the number of people in their 20s in the Triangle grew 10.8% between 2017 and 2022, the fifth fastest of any metro area in the study, according to CBRE.
• That rate, however, was bested by the number of people in their 30s, with that cohort growing 16.8%, the third best in the study.

Go deeper: Read the report in full

Editor's note: This story has been updated with corrected information from CBRE showing that the Triangle came in at No. 16 among the top metros for top talent (not No. 14).